The Girl's Bohemian Bedroom (or the It's-About-Damn-Time Bedroom Reveal)

So it's been months since my last post...I miss you guys's faces. Anyway, we started this bedroom journey over a year ago, but given our budget was what I could afford, when I could afford it, and we weren't trying to buy too many new things, we made pretty good time, right? I knew you'd be on my side :D Now, I think this reveal will be done in two parts because of the amount of pictures and stuff to talk about. So in this one, we'll go over the "big picture" and in the next, the smaller details. 

So without further ado....

From the doorway looking in

It's important to know what The Girl's room looked like before. These were taken when we first moved in. Note her unpacked box: 

Awful, right? We replaced the blanket almost immediately, but it didn't quite fit the bed (despite the label on the bedding) and the colors faded after almost the first wash.

New, ill fitting bed set

We started by replacing her bedding again (ignore her terribly made bed), but worked with the furniture she already had. I made her curtain to her [lack of] specifications, the "chandelier" with tie-died paper butterflies, and the canopy. I collected scarfs and hankies and the like to throw over the surfaces early on in the process. And again, in case you forgot already...

Her TV nook (yes, that is the one and only truly outrageous Jem you spy there) and desk take up most of the wall across from the bed. I decided to frame her posters, but finding large enough frames that weren't stupid expensive was really hard, so we're actually publishing this with two posters unframed (it doesn't help that new ones keep appearing). 

From the bed

 

Her Tree of Life wall hanging was a gift from my mother for Christmas (or her birthday??) and hides the door to the storage area above the garage. The cat statue (the one against the wall...not the fat cat...that's Cat) and a bunch of other stuff came from the same shop. It was a place in the mall that sold things from India. The Girl loved that store. It closed in March.

Towards the doorway 

The door is her closet (and proof that her love of 1D hasn't disappeared entirely). The dresser was painted and covered with yet another scarf.

Opposite the window

I purchased some inexpensive rugs and tossed them around the room. I bought cheap baskets in fun colors (or spray painted boring ones) to corral her things. There's one her remotes and another for books, another for her body/hair stuffs and so on.

Enjoying her rugs...and Magic and Psych (we'd had enough of Jem)

 Most of the decorative elements fell into one of two categories: DIY or thrifted. I did purchase a few things new, but we really aimed to achieve a reuse, repurpose, or upcycle kinda thing. I'll go into all of that more in Part 2.

How to Control All of the Things (or at Least Feel Like You Do)!

So remember last week when I told you I wasn't doing anything and needed to get myself back into a routine? Well, today I'm gonna tell you a little bit about mine so you can come up with your own.

So I made a list of the usual chores everyone has to do in every household everywhere (clean the bathroom(s), laundry, dishes, etc) Then I broke that down into two lists: stuff that has to get done every day nearly every day (baby steps), and stuff that has to get done weekly (otherwise known as my "daily chore"). With the daily stuff, I created a morning and evening routine in EverNote so I can refer to it on my phone if I need a reminder as to what I'm supposed to be doing next.

And then I did the same with the weekly stuff, but a little more thought went into it. It all comes down to when it makes sense to do something. For example, tonight, Monday, is trash night in our neighborhood, so I decided that cleaning out the fridge should be done on Monday. Whenever I can, I multitask. Because I need time in the evenings to watch True Blood now that I finally talked My Fella into HBO. So on Mondays (and laundry nights [Tuesday and Thursday...because I know you were dying to know]), I do my daily chore during whatever down time I have while cooking dinner. I also clean up the mess as I go, to the extent that I can.

This is where you're really going to tweak a routine to fit your lifestyle. I have off every weekend, so I try to get my errands done on those Saturdays or Sundays. I also have off every other Friday. I try to use those days to do "extra" stuff (organize a closet, hang towel hooks, etc) because the two Fridays that I DO work leave me with no time whatsoever. I work, plus get The Girl from the train at nearly 7:00 p.m., almost an hour from home (but only 11 minutes from work) aaaaaaaand we've been getting into a habit of getting Chinese on the way home, so I leave at 8:30 a.m. and don't get in till nearly 9:00 p.m.

I've gotten some projects finished that I'd been meaning to get to for forever. They're not huge things, but I feel like if I can get through that list, I can work on my bigger/unimportant/just for fun projects with less guilt. Pluuuuuus, since they're mostly organizational stuff, it helps me get through my routine quicker (ya know, when I'm not going, "Where the F*CK did I leave my/the <insert the thing I need that didn't have a home because my closet/cabinet/etc was not organized in the way it should have been>?!" things move faster. Just sayin'). Plus they look prettier and that calms my nerves :) Anyway, I'll probably share my kitchen cabinet and laundry hall (because it isn't a room) and the improvements I've made on them next week!

I Owe You an Apology

I have been gone forever, I know. I think about you all the time, though! And I DO have a good reason. On St. Patrick's Day, I started a job. It's almost an hour drive, so even though my hours are only 10-4, it's really like 9-5 (sometimes later)...and actually, as of this past Friday, 8:30-5. BUT (there are so many buts), firstly, I REALLY like this job, so you should forgive me for my absence because you are ever so happy for me :) Right? Before I get to the "secondly" part (which is good news for yous, btw), I should give yous some background about me. I am crazy. Absolutely neurotic. I've mentioned my need to face my cans, right? And that my kids are trained to give me even amounts of Reeses Pieces? And that I thrive on routines (oh, and lists. I do so love my lists)? Well, if I haven't, now you know. And when I don't have my lists and routines, my "routine" looks like this:

Neglect a bunch of things, stress over not being able to find the time to NOT neglect them, and then, one day, neglect other stuff to do ALL OF THINGS. At once. Repeat.

It's utter chaos. Which only serves to make me MORE anxious. In the past, to combat this insanity, I employed more insanity a structured routine. This is where it gets good for you. The last couple of months have been the aforementioned cycle of insanity. It's been incredibly difficult for me to re-acclimate to working again after not working for so long. I can't seem to restructure accordingly because there was no structure to  begin with, ya dig? As such, I've come up with a daily routine (morning/evening) and a weekly routine. It's pretty basic right now as I test it out and make adjustments, but it will become rigidly structured over time because that's how I roll. I somehow have an easier time deviating from the routine the more structured it is. Does that even make sense? If I know exactly what every minute of every day looks like, I know exactly what can be rearranged when something unexpected comes up. Somebody out there "gets" me, I'm sure. Anyway, back to you. So I've determined to include 1. crafting time and 2. blogging time. I think to start, I'll keep it to blogging once a week. But crafting and blogging were my hobbies. And it's true what they say, everyone DOES need a hobby. And I need to get mine back. In the meantime, bear with me!

St. Patty's Subway Art

A few days ago I showed you my St. Patty's mantle where my subway art hangs and promised to show you how I made it. Let's discuss this idea of "subway art", first, though. WHY is it called subway art? What does that even MEEEAAAN?! I've taken the subway. A LOT. No fewer than 10 times a week, and sometimes more. I've never seen art in the subway. I've seen maps. I've seen ads. I've seen "tags." I've even seen, well, nothing you wanna hear about. None of it could be considered art. Somebody help me out here. Where did the name come from????

Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's talk about my wall hanging. First off, there's no way I could have done this freehand. Buuuuuuut....I wanted to decide what it was going to say and how it would be placed, so using someone else's image wasn't gonna do, either. Lucky for me, LeAna from A Small Snippet posted this Easy DIY Handpainted Canvas tutorial. The trick is transferring pencil marks, which is something I wouldn't have even know existed if not for her post :) Knowing what steps I'd be taking, I downloaded some free fonts and got to work with an image editor.

Don't forget your fadas!

This is what I came up with. Not all of the fonts included characters with fadas, so I made a little reminder to myself to add the ones that weren't printed. It came out a bit smaller than my canvas (don't ask...). From there, I followed LeAna's instructions and got t' tracin'. One of the commenters on her post suggested placing your print on a glass table with a lamp underneath. Pure genius.

I did this over the course of two evenings. No lie, I write hard and my hand cramped up after awhile. I DID have a large-ish image with a lot of letters, though. The knots in "sláinte" (which gets a fada over the "a" and I DID forget it, despite my note to myself) didn't help, either.

It worked! Holy crap! I totally expected it not to. Not because I didn't trust LeAna, but because that would just be my luck (contrary to popular belief, the Irish are NOT a lucky bunch). In the original tutorial, she tells us to place the print, right side up, on the canvas and trace back over the letters. I'm not a great tracer to begin with, so when I went back over, sometimes I didn't trace over the PENCIL MARKS on the backside if they didn't line up with where I traced the front. Did that make sense? So I scribbled over the front. True story. And I didn't have a pencil sharpener, so I went through three pencils because mechanical pencils, which we have in abundance, do NOT work well. But. There's always a but, isn't there? Three of my fonts had knots in them. You can see in the "MAR" that's not a huge problem, but where I used a smaller size font, you just can't get the detail [presumably] because of the texture of the canvas. See?

I removed them from one of the phrases (well, blessing, really), but left them in "sláinte." I also needed to outline the knots in black so they looked like knots and not just swirls once they were painted.

With the letters/knots in "sláinte," I used the pencil marks I WAS able to make out, and just kinda made up the parts I couldn't. If you look closely, you can see some of them don't actually work out proper like, but whataryag'nnado, right? Then I hung it, still wet. I didn't trust Boots not to destroy it trying to sharpen his claws on it or trust any of the three of them not to walk or sleep on it while it dried. So yeah, it went right on the wall. 

The Girl thinks we should leave it up year round. I'd consider it if it wasn't dated. Wish I'd thought of that...

TL;DR: 

1. Full instructions are on A Small Snippet and the specific post is HERE.
2. If you're using an image with a lot of words or detail, expect to take a break or few because your hand will hurt.
3. If you can put a light under your image, do.
4. Try to avoid small, extremely detailed fonts (such as ones with Celtic knots). Get rid of them completely, or use a larger font size.

Me Father, He Was Orange and Me Mother, She Was Green

Teaser. *cue stripper music*

Ok, that's not true. Me mother was Orange. My grandfather was Green, though, so there's that. Any ol' way, I posted this teaser on Facebook earlier yesterday and promised a post to go along with it. To hold me accountable if I didn't update. It's tomorrow. But this is progress, people! And I blame me mother for my tardiness. We went to Target. Shenanigans ensued. I fed my peeps McDonald's for dinner because I didn't make it home early enough to cook. True story. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about St. Patrick's Day! Some more, I mean. Let's talk about it some more.

So, I'm Irish. Me ma (as she'll be known henceforth) almost named me O'tilly. They'd have called me Oat for short. I'm not even making that up. Literally, on her birthing bed, she changed her mind. Granted, we're protestant (except for my grandfather's side), but we're also American. So of COURSE I celebrate St. Patrick's Day. With gusto! And whiskey. And decorations...which is the reason you're here. The teaser above is part of my mantle which I've changed up as often as possible.

I mostly used things I already owned. The apothecary jar and candle holders are mantle staples. I change out what's in the jar and the ribbon around the candles as I get bored the occasion calls.

The books and beer glasses came from my already existing collection. The Irish books have the perfect style/color for the scheme already. I added a copy of Great Expectations because of the green cover. Considering adding a few more green books, but we'll see. The beer glasses were filled with water and green food coloring with some floating candles.

The wooden shamrock garland was an impulse buy in Ross a few years back. I've never really been able to do anything with it before this mantle. The length just wasn't quite right for anything in my old homes. Seeing it now, I think it needs more orange. A trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics for some ribbon might be in order.

Pictured: less coinage than you'd think 2 lbs would be :/

I wasn't sure what I was going to put in the jar...I had a few ideas and wasn't sure which was my fave or which was the most practical given the size of the thing (and by practical, I mean cheap). I ended up buying two pounds of these chocolate coins, not because they were my fave (I hadn't yet made that decision) or the most practical, but because they were convenient. Like, I was in the grocery store and they had them in the loose candy aisle, so I bought them because if I let myself think about it, I'd never decide and my mantle would never be finished. But really though, they ARE fun, are they not? SN: two pounds of coins was NOT enough to make it look full enough. I wadded up newspaper, covered it in masking tape, and put that at the bottom of the jar. I placed the coins systematically around the "ball" to add bulk. Now it appears half full rather than a quarter full. W00t!

Now this...THIS is my baby. I made it myself. I can't paint or draw or anything like that. This is the closest I've come to being an artist lol I'll post tomorrow about HOW I did it (spoiler: it was totes through the help of another blog. Tune in tomorrow to see whose!!!!). I won't post a tutorial, as the original does a fine job of explaining it (and I'll link you to it, never fear!), but I will share some tips and pictures from my own experience.

In the upcoming week(s), I plan to share some of my favorite St. Patty's Irish recipes. I make the same thing every year -- and no, it is NOT corned beef and cabbage because hello...corned beef?! Hold your breath...it's not Irish, although there is some debate as to whether what I DO make is Irish, but we'll cross that bridge later. How do YOU celebrate the holiday?